Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’s a total mess

debugger.medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 624 posts

Re: USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’s a total mess

#311

Post by coryfklein »

dcchambers wrote: post #82

USB-C is mostly a mess if you try to get away using the cheapest adapters/cables you can find, that often times won't follow the spec. Most of the issues vanish if you use high-end cables/adapters from reputable manufacturers. This is a departure from the world of Micro USB where most cheap cables worked just as good as "high end" cables. There are caveats. For example, my Nintendo Switch, a major electronics device…

And how exactly does one know they have received a "high end" cable or charger? Because it cost enough? Because a website claimed it was "Offishial Ankker CABLE"?

I'm with you; as an educated techie I'm confident I can find a setup that works for my devices, but I'm far from the common denominator here. Frankly I'm a little concerned when HN thinks, "Nah this isn't a problem, USB-C is working just fine for me. None of my devices have blown up yet" says anything about whether it's a good standard.

Re: USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’s a total mess

#312

Post by [deleted] »

mikepurvis wrote: post #291
dheera wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish there were legal protections around this. Using a standard plug means it should accept the standard for that plug.

It depends, though. In all likelihood it would end up thrown back on the consumer— "Did you use a licensed/approved/certified charger? Sounds like you need to take this up with whoever made the charger that fried our product." It might help resolve certain really common cases like compatibility between the chargers and devices of the mainstream entities. I guess I'd argue that that should be happening on its own, but…

[deleted]

Re: USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’s a total mess

#313

Post by arthur2e5 »

lstamour wrote: post #100
izacus wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Aha - you may find that your Switch CANNOT in fact share a charge - Nintendo's port is not necessarily safe to use with anything but its supplied charger. And I've just learned this lesson with a $60 bill from Nintendo repair after the port went pop and couldn't charge the device. I only have reputable chargers in the house from Apple and one from Anker aside from the Nintendo's own. It has worked reliably with pre…

Actually it isn’t but I’m not finding the article I’d previously read on the topic. Personally I think it comes down to both the charging profiles the switch will accept are limited, such that some chargers don’t work with the switch - each USB PD charger supports a different set of charging specs (volts/amps/watts). https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/ch99aj/apple_... I’d also suggest that some PD bricks/…

Like someone said upthread, the issue isn't with how it does not accept all profiles, but with how it says it accepts 20V while expecting 15V.

Re: USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’s a total mess

#314

Post by HelloNurse »

dcchambers wrote: post #82

USB-C is mostly a mess if you try to get away using the cheapest adapters/cables you can find, that often times won't follow the spec. Most of the issues vanish if you use high-end cables/adapters from reputable manufacturers. This is a departure from the world of Micro USB where most cheap cables worked just as good as "high end" cables. There are caveats. For example, my Nintendo Switch, a major electronics device…

> It's these caveats that are the real downfall... for those of us in the technology world, it's easy for us to be aware of them. For everyone else, it's not.

I have the contrary impression: understanding the "caveat" implies strong distrust for the experts who know that "maybe it works" means "assume it doesn't work", while a blissfully unaware consumer could get lucky and never know that USB-C is actually fragmented and difficult to use.

Re: USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’s a total mess

#315

Post by floatingatoll »

dheera wrote: post #305
mikepurvis wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends, though. In all likelihood it would end up thrown back on the consumer— "Did you use a licensed/approved/certified charger? Sounds like you need to take this up with whoever made the charger that fried our product." It might help resolve certain really common cases like compatibility between the chargers and devices of the mainstream entities. I guess I'd argue that that should be happening on its own, but…

The chargers that use standard plugs should also be made to support the standard or they should be held legally responsible. In this particular case I think even well-known name brand chargers which follow standards (Apple, Anker) are breaking the Nintendo, and that's unacceptable.

Nintendo’s Switch plug happens to physically and electrically seem to accept USB-C charger connectors, but it’s not a USB-C plug, and the Switch should not be considered compatible just because it uses a similar plug.

Nintendo should have taken more steps with their charger to restrict the Switch to authorized chargers only, rather than permitting unsupported chargers (such as standard USB-C ones) from being able to power it. Or even just outright used a proprietary connector!

None of this is any fault of the chargers. They’re the ones adhering to the standards correctly. The Switch is at fault.

Re: USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’s a total mess

#316

Post by LexGray »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #262
vr46 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aha - you may find that your Switch CANNOT in fact share a charge - Nintendo's port is not necessarily safe to use with anything but its supplied charger. And I've just learned this lesson with a $60 bill from Nintendo repair after the port went pop and couldn't charge the device. I only have reputable chargers in the house from Apple and one from Anker aside from the Nintendo's own. All my apple kit works fine off t…

Side Note: Make sure you buy your Apple chargers from Apple. If you bought it from Amazon or similar, there's a good chance it's fake.

Additional side note: non-Apple chargers are often scary inside. They rarely contain the safeties of Apple chargers. That is outside this whole hackers setting chargers on fire issue.

Re: USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’s a total mess

#318

Post by muyuu »

jeremymcanally wrote: post #4

Really? I find it to be a game changer for me. The fact that my laptop, Switch, iPad, and several other devices can all share a charge has made my life much easier. I can just sprinkle a few of them throughout the house and never be without power. Before it was always a hunt to find a cable, or I had to be in [x] room to charge [y] device because that's where the charger lived. Plus, I can charge my MacBook on either…

Yea I agree. I'm super negative and I don't think I've ever liked any other USB before, but this standard is great. I only wish some of my older hardware had it, won't buy a new tablet without USB-C.

Re: USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’s a total mess

#319

Post by laumars »

derefr wrote: post #108
reader_mode wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why ? You have the same plug but it's not actually compatible - this to me is a good example of confusion - I would be the first to assume you can charge it with whatever USB-C power cable available and not bother checking the docs.

Because it could have happened just as well with any other plug. It could have been a non-conforming micro-USB charging port. Either way, it would have nothing to do with “the mess that is USB-C” (i.e. the inability to identify which of the various wire protocols that work over USB-C cables that a USB-C port follows/supports), because such a port isn’t following any of the USB-C-cable compatible standards. It’d be li…

Back then sockets were known to be dumb connectors and hardware wasn’t designed to be compatible with one another (in fact it was often designed specifically to be incompatible). However these days there is an expectation, particularly with USB, that anything which looks like a USB port is in fact a USB port. They’re sold as smart ports for that reason. And the fact that the Switch does work with some USB-C chargers is evidence that it is at its heart a USB port. So it’s not unreasonable for people to expect these sockets that look like universal smart ports to behave like a universal smart port.

Re: USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’s a total mess

#320

Post by anticristi »

Indeed, the apparent simplicity on the physical layer has moved the complexity onto the logical layer. I love the article, and it made me aware of a lot of things I didn't know.

However, my experience with USB-C is way better. I use the same charger for my laptop, pad and phone. I even use the same screen (with integrated docking station) for both my laptop and my phone (yay Samsung DeX), both at work and at home. This would have been impossible / unimaginable half-a-decade ago. (Anyone remember the "Lenovo-type" docking station vs. the "Dell-type" docking station?)

I agree that USB-C still has challenges to overcome, but I find the direction so-far to be the right one.

Post reply on HN